I'm going to try natural gas this winter

I have a dual fuel boiler system in my house. I typically heated with ng is Oct & Nov, then fired up the coal in Dec. With the rise in coal prices and the drop in ng, I'm not sure if the savings is there anymore? I'm going to find out. Anybody else on the fence?

What is your gas costing you this season...

I don't know exactly. I remember when I looked at it last April it was around $1.05 for 100therms. That included distribution charges. Its hard doing the math and boiling everything down to an apples vs apples comparison. I'm going to ride ng for a month or two. If I see a big increase in cost, I'll just order a delivery of coal.

http://nepacrossroads.com/fuel-comparison-calculator.php
This should help...
You do mean per therm...

if you have a high eff gas heating appliance 95 to 98 % your better off w/ na tgas if you fig in your labor

After having switched my propane provider from Suburban to Ferrel Gas for well over a $1.50/gal savings I was tempted to try a winter without coal but my wife likes the coal heat better. You have to weigh a lot of things, I don't have the option for NG so the wife becomes the deciding factor. With a newer NG furnace & a good rate it my well be real close.

At that $1.05 price I would probably do the same. I would still probably light up the coal stove to supplement for the coldest two -three months since the coal heat just "feels" warmer than the furnace heat.

We also get the side benefit of drying the clothes on the line in the basement from the coal heat rather than running the dryer.

Since we only have propane as an option not NG, and that is at $2.15/gallon, it is an easy choice for me to stay on coal.

Jeesh .. propane is around $2.80/gallon out here last I checked ...

Ahh, gotcha. Makes sense.

My natural gas boiler is 80% eff. For coal to get into my basement, it'll cost $242 per ton.

My neighbor has an high eff ng boiler. It was very expensive. He paid around $13K for the unit. Last spring, just after the warrenty expired, it broke down. Since everything was high tech it took alot of diagnositics to find the bad part. He had to pay $3K for the part and labor.

But back to my case... I think natural gas is becoming cost competitive with coal since coal went up in price. I'll find out and let you know.

Richard S. wrote:

SMITTY wrote:Jeesh .. propane is around $2.80/gallon out here last I checked ...

Smitty those propane companies usually give deals on bulk delivery with contract.

The $2.15 propane price is because we own the tanks and don't lease them. That allows us to shop around for pricing and it makes a huge difference. If we still had the lease, their price was $2.89 / gallon. I know this is current info for our area because two weeks ago I shopped to fill the (3) 1,000 gallon tanks for the church . I always call the company we had the lease with and get their price so that we can calculate how long it takes to save the money we spent on the tanks and install.

I just looked at my bill from the last month. Natural gas cost me $8.89 per Ccf. I think that's 100 therms. So if I mulitple that by 10 I get Mcf. Using that calculator link, it appears natural gas for me is about 15% cheaper than coal. Is this right?